


broken bones

by notdarthvader



Category: Fallout 4
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Character Study, Drug Use, M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-06
Updated: 2018-05-29
Packaged: 2019-03-14 14:01:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 15,300
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13591569
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notdarthvader/pseuds/notdarthvader
Summary: He calls himself a Vault Dweller, and maybe that's true, but Hancock can see it, Daisy can see it. They all can see it.There's something like danger that whispers in the wind where he walks, a spell of bad luck that tracks in his footsteps."Trouble," Hancock says. "He's trouble."Fahrenheit shoots him a look. "We could use a little trouble around here, boss."He grins and it's feral enough to set her teeth on edge. "Yeah, sister. Yeah we could."





	1. i've been down, deep texas mississippi state

**Author's Note:**

> Title taken from the Kaleo song. Mostly from the chorus. I feel like male sole survivor’s military background isn’t expanded upon enough sometimes, especially considering how many ways there are to be involved in the military. That paired with PTSD and years of survival instincts already in place? This is a take on that.
> 
> Devil’s gonna make me a free man/  
> The devil’s gonna set me free/  
> Got no place to call a home/  
> Only chains, and broken bones/
> 
> Also this whole thing is just a guilty self indulgence fun thing for me, so idk if there will be more or if I ever update. Well see

“He’s threatening a newcomer. Talkin’ about insurance again.”

Hancock sighs and slings his feet off the table he had them propped up on. “Alright. Time to teach him a lesson or put him down, I guess.”

Fahrenheit tsks, but there’s humor in her eyes. “Took you long enough, boss.”

* * *

 

He gets there in time to catch the tail end of Finn’s threat. Sometime mundane and cheesy about needing insurance to stay in Goodneighbor.

He doesn’t catch that much of a glimpse at the newcomer, not right away, but there’s something like danger in the man’s voice that sends chills racing up his spin.

Even that idiot Finn hears it, because the tough-guy façade cracks immediately and he’s backing away, hands in the air. “Woah, hey, all right. We’ll just, uh, say your insurance is paid up for now, okay?”

The newcomer’s mouth is hidden by a bandana, but the corners of his eyes crinkle. “You’re welcome to try and collect, whenever you want.” His voice is light and mocking, but there’s something about him that makes Finn take a step back. The German Sheppard at the newcomer’s heels barks, and Finn stumbles back again.

Hancock decides he’s had enough. “Time out,” he says, walking forward, and the man’s eyebrows quirk up in interest. “Someone steps through the gate the first time, they’re a guest. You lay off that extortion crap.”

The despite the bandana and the hidden lower half of his face, the man’s got expressive eyes, and he doesn’t even flinch as Hancock stabs Finn in the stomach, feeling the slick heat of his blood pour over his hand as Finn drops lifelessly to the ground.

“I know you had him handled,” Hancock says, making a point to clean his blade on his overcoat. “but sometimes I gotta make sure folks are hearin’ what I have to say. Goodneighbor’s of the people, for the people, you feel?”

The man’s eyes crinkle again, but this time he gets the feeling that the humor is goodnatured; genuine. “Yeah,” he says, and his voice is softer than Hancock would have expected. “I feel you.”

Hancock takes a second to take in his appearance. Dusty, covered in grime, long, sheet black hair pulled into a bun at his neck, road goggles sitting high on his forehead. Skin dark as the shadows on sand and eyes that burned green-gold like the crest of sunlight through trees in the early mornings, and road leathers and various bits of scavenged armor strapped to him.

He feels a sardonic smile twist his lips. “You stay cool, you’ll be part of the neighborhood. So long as you remember who’s in charge.”

The man doesn’t quail in fear or even flinch. If anything, he seems more amused than anything. “As you say,” he says, and Hancock thinks that will be that.

* * *

 

That is, until a few days later, Fahrenheit walks up to him. “That new guy in the neighborhood. He turned on Bobbi when he realized he’d been duped. It was-“ Fahrenheit pauses and Hancock sits up.

Fahrenheit is not one to pause or pick her words carefully.

“I couldn’t see much of his expression where he was standing. But one moment, Bobbi had a head. The next, she was a bloody stain on the floor. I didn’t even see him move, boss. Just saw him put his gun back into his holster.”

Hancock whistles through his teeth. “So. He’s got the bite to match his bark.”

“He’s danger.”

“Trouble,” Hancock corrects. “He’s trouble.”

Fahrenheit shoots him a look, and there’s something like humor settling into her expression. “We could use a little trouble around here, boss.”

He grins and its feral enough to set her teeth on edge. “Yeah, sister. Yeah we could.”

* * *

 

The man comes to talk to him about the incident.

“You killed her, huh.”

He shrugs a single shoulder. “I don’t like being used.”

“Brother, you ain’t gonna like the wasteland much then.”

The man shrugs again. “I’m quick on the draw. I figure I can handle myself.”

Hancock stretches back, folding his hands behind his head. “So I heard. I just want you to know, I got no hard feelings you were duped.”

Again, with the corner’s of his eyes crinkling in amusement. “Good to know. Wouldn’t want another mayor on my ass.”

Hancock waves his hand idly. “Lemme tell ya’, this class little tricorner hat of mine is getting heavy. Am I turning into the man? Some kind of tyrant? I spend all my time putting down the people I would’ve been proud to scheme with just a few years ago. I need to take a walk again, get a grip on what really matters.”

The man looks down at his dog, then back at Hancock and seems to make his mind up. “If you’re heading out, why not come with me?”

Hancock grins. “I think I like the sound of that.”

* * *

 

The man’s name is Jackie. Jackie James.

_A good outlaw name_ , Jackie says with some humor when he tells Hancock.

_Brother, we’re all outlaws here. Except for those stiffs in Diamond City._

That’s the first time Hancock hears Jackie laugh. It’s dry, a little weary, but a true, genuine laugh.

If he had to pick a moment, Hancock likes to think that it was at that moment he knew he was doomed.

* * *

 

The thing about Jackie is he never takes off the damn bandana, refuses to show the lower half of his face. When they eat, he turns his head away and slips food under the bandana.

Hancock isn’t sure why, but he thinks he can understand and never pushes.

There are things to be said about hating your own face, hating your own skin.

* * *

 

Jackie takes Psycho sometimes, and even though Hancock’s seen calmer men lose their fucking mind on Psycho, Jackie just seems to settle into it, like coming home to a second skin.

That’s one of the enigma’s that he can’t get past.

“Say,” he says one night while they’re making camp. “You ain’t a ghoul. You ain’t a synth, I don’t think. How do you take Psycho like you do and stay so calm.”

Jackie looks up at him, and across the fire, his eyes glitter gold, and gold, and gold. “When we get ourselves a fight. You’ll understand then.”

They’ve been jumped a few times, but it’s nothing that a few shotgun shells can’t take care of. They haven’t really been in a real fire fight, not yet at least. And now? Hancock’s stomach turns uncertainly.

“Alright. I’m holding you to that,” Hancock says.

And though he can’t see his actual mouth, he can tell that Jackie is grinning at him.

It’s not friendly.

* * *

 

“Hey,” Jackie whispers at him from where he’s crouched next to the shore of the lake. “You wanted to see, right?”

Through the fog, Hancock can make out the faint silhouette of a bridge. “Yeah,” he says, as Jackie lays down on his stomach, pulling out gun parts from one of his packs. A long barrel, a marksman’s stock, a scope and a silencer, and Hancock thinks he might understand. “I’ve seen good snipers before,” he says, thinking of MacCready hiding out in the Third Rail.

Jackie snorts, and the sound is almost swallowed by the suffocating still of the fog. “Not to be arrogant,” he says, voice soft and hushed as death itself. “but I really don’t think you have.”

Jackie settles in, and breathes out, his whole body going still.

Fires, once, twice, three times.

Breathes in. “Go check out the bridge. I’ll be here when you’re done.”

“Yeah. Okay.”

* * *

 

On his sneak to the bridge, he hears the muffled thwack of the rifle sound four more times, and then nothing.

* * *

 

When he gets to the bridge, he sees the bodies of seven supermutants, their heads all cleanly shot off their shoulders.

He sucks in a breath through his teeth.

* * *

 

“Psycho was supposed to help keep me alive if I got spotted on an assassination. It was supposed to help me line up my shots. They made me take it twice a week without Addictol until I got used to the high and could use the rush to settle me.”

Hancock blinks. He didn’t expect that. “Who’s they?”

Jackie looks at him, and there’s something heartrending in his expression. “Follow me?” he asks, and his voice is soft and sad and dangerous.

“Lead the way,” he replies, and fights down the panicked rabbit-fast beat to his heart.

* * *

 

The truth is beyond what Hancock can even comprehend.

A frozen crypt, a lost son, and viciously murdered wife.

Jackie says it all in an even voice, and shrugs it off like it was nothing.

_They_ he learns, was the old military, who took a chipper young college grad and turned him into a ruthless, efficient sniper.

“I was good,” Jackie says softly. “I was too damn good.”

“’S that why you hide your face?”

Jackie laughs and it’s bitter and terrible. “Yes and no.” He reaches up and pulls the bandana down.

“Holy shit,’ Hancock says.

Jackie nods miserably.

“You’re _him_.”

He’s seen Jackie’s face plastered all over the old world propaganda posters and littered in the trash that collected against the walls of crumbling buildings.

Jackie gives him a weak smile, and it’s viscerally startling to see those full, soft lips and that iconic tattoo that tracks down the middle of his bottom lip and follows down his chin and throat, a solid black line of ink and shame that marked the old world’s most famous poster boy for the military.

“You’re him,” Hancock repeats.

Jackie nods and refuses to make eye contact.

“I mean,” Hancock amends quickly. “There ain’t nothing wrong with that, it’s just. You’re like a military edition pin-up.”

Jackie barks a startled laugh. “I never particularly thought myself pretty enough to be a pin-up anything. You shoulda seen my wife though, when she put on those thigh highs of hers? Made a man weep with joy a few times.”

Hancock snickers. “Maybe so, but let me tell you, in this ugly ass world? You gotta be one of the prettiest things we got.”

Jackie huffs a laugh. “That so?”

“Yeah, brother. It damn well is.”

And well, that’s that.

* * *

 

Jackie keeps wearing his bandana during the day, around everyone else, but at night on the road, when it’s just the two of them after a long, hard day? He’ll take it off, and Hancock wonders if he’s ever been this lucky to have someone trust him like that.

* * *

 

Kellogg-

Kellogg _knows_.

“Look who it is. The poster boy.”

And the thing is, the second those words leave his mouth, Jackie tears off his bandana, more snarling, spitting furious that Hancock’s ever seen him. “Where is my _son_.”

Kellogg seems almost amused by that, and talks out his ass in a mellow, easy going voice.

And Jackie-

Well. Jackie breathes in deep, going still and calm in a way that Hancock’s only seen when he’s shot-up Psycho or stilled for a headshot.

“You know who I am,” he says.

Kellogg nods. “I asked for information on you. The Institute was more than willing to provide. Some two hundred confirmed kills in about three years. Of course, that’s only taking into account the confirmed ones from your service. Given the trail of blood you’ve left behind you, I’d say you might’ve doubled that.”

Jackie takes this in, breathing deep. “Do you know what they called me?”

* * *

 

After they leave, they watch the Prydwyn fly in, giant, overwhelming, and terrifying.

Jackie just sighs. “I guess we have to go back and talk to that stiff,” he says.

Hancock laughs. It’s short and startled, but it’s a laugh all the same.

* * *

 

Paladin Danse spouts some shit about saving the commonwealth, and from the flat look in Jackie’s eyes, he’s not buying it. But, there’s something in those green eyes, and he agrees, however reluctantly, to sign aboard with the Brotherhood.

So sign aboard they do, and a short Vertibird ride later, they’re on the Prydwyn.

( _Hancock doesn’t think about the far off look in Jackie’s eyes as he climbs onto the Vertibird, the almost haunted look as he gripped the minigun in his hands._ )

* * *

 

“Do you know what they called me?” Jackie asks, and Kellogg smirks.

* * *

 

On their way out, Jackie settled in T-60 armor, one of the Brotherhood soldiers makes a vicious, biting comment directed at Hancock as they walk past.

Jackie turns, claps one hand on the Knight’s shoulder and then says something soft, so soft that Hancock can’t quite make it out.

A second later the Knight stutters out an apology, and then three seconds later, every armor piece just- drops off the Knight’s power armor frame.

Jackie takes Hancock’s arm in his massive metal gauntlet, and gently leads him from the ship.

* * *

 

_Do you know what they called me?_

* * *

 

“Hancock,” Jackie says, and it’s gentle in a way that he’s never heard in this wasteland.

“Yeah?”

“We’ve got a good thing goin’ here, don’t we?”

“Yeah. Yeah we sure do.”

* * *

 

The signal relay fires up in the background, and Jackie casts him a hesitant, fearful look.

“Go get ‘em,” Hancock says, and Jackie nods, and his eyes are green like the world Hancock knows has never been and the faint outline of the scars through his right brow catch in the eerie blue light and Hancock feels all the words catch in his throat. “Be careful,” he manages at last, and Jackie tightens his grip on Hancock’s forearm for a second. “You’re- you’ve made things a bit of an adventure. Don’t go and make me lose that now.”

Jackie smiles, and even though he can’t see his mouth again, he knows what that smile looks like. “Don’t worry, mayor. I’ll get back in one piece. I promise.”

* * *

 

So he says.

* * *

 

He does come back in one piece. Physically, at least.

* * *

 

His eyes are dark and haunted in a way that not even 210 years in a freezer and months in the unforgiving wastes could do.

* * *

 

He turns down Psycho for the first month he’s back, and throws himself into mission after mission to help clean up the area for settlers, killing raider gang after gunner gang after supermutant nest.

Hancock watches his back as his stomach ropes itself into knots.

* * *

 

“Hancock,” Jackie says at long last, and it’s been so, so long since he really _really_ spoke.

“What’cha need?” he asks, and hopes it sounds lighter than it comes out.

“My son is the leader of the Institute,” Jackie says, and Hancock thinks maybe this is what it was like, to watch that bomb drop on the horizon, the inevitable shock wave of destruction racing towards him.

* * *

 

It’s like a dam breaking, the way Jackie just spills out everything that happened. _There were **gorillas** there, Hancock_ , Jackie says, like that’s supposed to mean something. _There were gorillas, and it was so clean. The trees were green, and the water was crisp and clean and fresh and it was- it was horrible. All of it. They- they had no humanity. They took the humanity from my **son**_ _he was a cold, unfeeling monster, he said Nora was an **unfortunate casualty**. Who- Hancock, who says that? Who says that about their own murdered mother?_

Jackie asks questions that Hancock can’t answer, so he just reaches out and takes Jackie’s hand.

It’s easier than it should be.

_What did they do to my son?_ Jackie asks, and Hancock hates how he can’t say a damn thing.

* * *

 

“Do you know what they called me?” Jackie asks Kellogg, and there’s a threat in those words, and if Hancock thought that whatever was directed at Finn was cold, this is something on another level.

Kellogg bares his teeth. “Yeah, I know what they called you.”

* * *

 

Jackie cries in his sleep, just once.

It’s a few weeks after the horrid truth came spilling out, jagged and broken like the sharp edgesof a shattered glass bottle.

They’ve been on the road for days, on their way to the Boston Airport so Jackie can smooth thing over with the Brotherhood, so he can get what he wants from them, and he’s curled on his side, his long hair tied in a single braid down his back, his armor off as he sleeps.

Hancock startles from his watch at the first sniffle, and then watches as tears spill down the handsome panes of Jackie’s face. Five minutes later, Jackie wakes with a hoarse shout, his eyes wild.

Hancock makes a decision. He reaches out towards Jackie.

And Jackie-

Jackie reaches back.

Jackie falls back to sleep with his head in Hancock’s lap, and Hancock has one hand on his shotgun, the other tangled in the midnight spray of Jackie’s beautiful hair, and the dangerous flutter of hope like a noose around his throat.


	2. hoping things might go my way

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> disaster strikes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey thanks to the folks who reviewed, got me off my ass and updating this in the day

“Do you trust me?” Jackie asks.

Hancock can’t find the words to say _if you only just pointed I would walk as far as you needed. I’d walk into a bomb site, I’d walk into a trap, I’d- I’d lay down beside a sleeping deathclaw, if only you would ask._ Instead, he says “What’cha need?”

Jackie hesitates, looking worried. “I want to walk the Freedom Trail. But, I’m a sniper. I’m not good at close quarters combat.”

Hancock grins. “The Common’s an ugly place. You’ll watch my back then?”

“I won’t let a damn thing happen to you,” Jackie promises, and his eyes burn bright and fierce.

Hancock nods, the smile still settled easy on his face, and he rests his shotgun on his shoulder. “So. When do we start?”

* * *

 

It’s not the easiest thing, taking the notes on the historic markers, feeling the open, exposed streets stretch out around him.

But, every so often, he hears the quiet _thwack_ of Jackie’s shots finding their mark, and that tight knot of anxiety eases, just so

His whole walk, he’s virtually undisturbed.

They end at a church, and Jackie drops down beside him from his perch on top of the nearby building.

“You ready for this? I know Goodneighbor isn’t particularly synth friendly-“

“Hang on there, brother. We ain’t Institute friendly. We ain’t particularly fond of them snatching our own and replacing them with spies. That being said, synths who want to escape? Who want to get away from that? They’re welcome in Goodneighbor. It’s like I said. Of the people, for the people.”

Jackie smiles then, his eyes going soft and gentle. “Thanks, Hancock,” he says, and Hancock curses himself for the way his heart stutters in his chest.

* * *

 

“Stay here,” Jackie says to Deacon. “I know you’re supposed to watch me and evaluate my field performance, but you’ll just give my position away.”

Deacon opens his mouth to protest, but Hancock claps a hand on his shoulder. “Don’t worry, shifter, you got me for company while Jackie takes down your safehouse.”

An hour and a half later, Jackie strolls out of the silent compound, equipment in hand. “It’s done,” he says.

And that’s that.

* * *

 

_Do you know what they called me?_

* * *

 

Jackie watches the crows that cluster in the trees with a wistful look. When they’re in safe areas or set up for the night, he’ll sometimes whistle at them, and leave them bits of food. As the birds descend, he tracks them with his eyes, and it’s impossible to miss the disappointment.

* * *

 

“Are you ready to move out?” Paladin Danse asks, resolutely refusing to look in Hancock’s direction. And that’s fine. It’s fine. He’s fine with it.

Jackie can damn well handle himself, it’s the walking tin can he’s worried about, giving their position away and getting Jackie shot full of bullets.

“You know where I’ll be if you need me,” Hancock calls over his shoulder as he saunters down the halls of the Prydwyn, ignoring the eyes boring holes in his skull.

“Hancock-“ Jackie calls after him, and then there’s a rush of feet and Jackie’s standing in front of him. “I got something I need you to keep safe for me.”

Hancock blinks. This is new.

The knights around them watch while trying to act like they aren’t watching.

“Here,” Jackie fumbles out a small chain with a ring hanging around it. “Just. Hold on to this for me.”

“Sure thing, pal. But, uh, what is it?”

Jackie waves him off. “I’ll tell you later, I gotta go. Hold on to it?”

“You got it,” he hears himself say, and then Jackie’s gone, running off to catch up to wherever Danse is stomping off to.

He can feel the Knights staring daggers at him, and he decides maybe it’s best to be on his way as well.

* * *

 

He stares at it regularly in the long weeks that Jackie’s gone, turning it over in his hands, again and again.

The metal burns cold against his deadened nerves, and several times he’s tempted to ask someone about it.

But Jackie asked, in that soft, worried voice _hold on to it for me_ , and so he will.

He hasn’t felt this bound to someone since Goodneighbor opened her arms for him.

* * *

 

It’s easiest to wear the ring on its chain around his neck, where it sits easily against his chest, hidden beneath his clothes.

The days tick on.

* * *

 

He befriends Dogmeat, the huge, beautiful German Sheppard that tailed Jackie when he first came to Goodneighbor. Dogmeat promptly decides this means that he no longer needs to sleep in his own, and takes to falling asleep half on top of Hancock, or at the very least, draped over his ankles.

Hancock protests at first, but when the storms start rolling in, Dogmeat is warm, and he can hardly smell as is.

They make a good combination, he thinks.

He starts making minor trips around, Dogmeat on his heels, checking in on the nearby settlements, clearing out Raiders who come sniffing around.

Preston tips his hat in thanks when Hancock comes back from his patrols, and it makes his chest aches just a little less.

Dogmeat cuddles up with him as the sun sets and the rain falls, and Hancock thinks maybe he could do this if Jackie never makes it back.

* * *

 

There is a bird that nests in the giant tree in the middle of Sanctuary. It’s a quiet bird, watching them all with its three, blinking eyes.

It’s the biggest damn bird that Hancock’s ever seen, and it’s feathers are black as midnight.

The storm rolls in, and the bird croaks out a warning, its voice scratching, rough, and warbling like a death rattle in a ghoul’s chest.

“Oh,” Mama Murphey says, like it explains everything. “Oh, I get it now.”

Hancock doesn’t want to ask.

* * *

 

He lights up alongside the creek behind Sanctuary, taking a deep drag of his cigarette and shaking the Jet. Dogmeat lays down beside him, his head rested over his paws.

He breathes the Jet in and the colors explode in the world, the sunset lighting up the horizon, staining the world around him pink. He sinks back against the bank, and the crackling of the dry grass and the leaves is like the quaking of the earth itself, and the river is glowing, purple and brilliant, and the trees, for just a second, catch fire in the sunlight, green, bathed in gold.

And then-

Then the high fades, and it’s the same desolate, browned trees, and the sky seems muted and quiet.

He scratches Dogmeat behind his ears. “Think he’ll ever come back, boy?”

Dogmeat whines in response.

“Yeah,” he says then, his throat tight. “Yeah, me too.”

* * *

 

Danse shows up at Sanctuary.

Danse shows up alone.

“Where is he,” Hancock all but snarls at him.

“That’s none of your business, _feral_ ,” Danse spits back at him, and Hancock sees just a bit of red. Dogmeat snarls warningly behind him, and between the two of them, Hancock’s pretty sure they can take the tin can down.

“Take it easy there, man,” Deacon materializes from behind him. “I heard rumors that he dropped Danse because he clanked too loud and picked up someone sneakier.”

Danse looks away.

Hancock lets the rage fade from his veins, and stares for a long moment, before doubling over in laughter. “You got your ass ditched because you couldn’t be assed to get out of that fucking power armor.”

“Shut up,” Danse hisses at him, but Hancock just keeps snickering.

“All talk, no action. Twenty caps says you thought you could tank for him instead of letting him do his thing and covering him if he got exposed.”

From the way Danse’s face reddens, Hancock knows he’s hit the nail on the head. Power Armor or not, Danse is just as desperate to prove himself to Jackie as they all are.

In this, at least, Hancock is no more a fool that the rest of them.

* * *

 

It’s another long month and a half of patrols, raids, and the ominous watch of the giant black bird, before Hancock wakes to a startlingly familiar voice.

“And then this jerk,” MacCready’s saying, “And then this absolute showoff goes; _Well MacCready, if you can do it, I reckon anyone can_. And the weirdest thing was, he sounded so much like me. I swear the guy could’ve been like, my long lost brother or some crap like that. And then he pulls out this little peashooter and nails three raiders in the head about half a mile away.”

And then-

_And then_ he hears it.

Jackie laughs, rough and dry, but it’s a laugh all the same, and Hancock is almost tripping over himself to get up and out of bed. Dogmeat is already bounding out the door, barking loud and joyous.

* * *

 

Jackie has a new scar clipping across the bridge of his nose, his bandana is torn and frayed around the edges, and the dark bags under his eyes are only deeper, but he brightens when he sees Hancock, something like relief flickering through his expression.

“Hancock,” he breathes out, and something warm and desperate burns in Hancock’s ribcage.

“Well, well.” He manages to get out. “Guess you didn’t forget about little ol’ me after all.”

And Jackie grins back at him, just like he always does. “You ready to hit the road?”

* * *

 

Jackie spends two nights at Sanctuary, sitting cross-legged on the patio of the main house, watching the rain pour down in sheets.

The giant bird croaks in the tree and Jackie goes from relaxed and easy to bowstring taut in half a second.

The next second he’s running through the rain, over to the base of the old tree. “Nemain?” he asks, and his voice is so quiet, so fragile, the rain nearly swallows it.

The bird spreads its giant wings and flies down to land on his outstretched arm, and Hancock doesn’t think he’s ever seen Jackie so happy.

Jackie is breathing curses and promises and his eyes are shining with joy as he strokes his fingers through the bird’s sleek feathers and the bird is attempting to groom him right back, her beak nuzzling through his hair.

“I didn’t think-“ Jackie says, but Nemain just croaks at him, and Jackie grins. “You’re right. To think, something as weak and foolish as a nuclear detonation or the ravages of time could take you from this earth.”

The bird squawks at him and nips at his ear, but Jackie just laughs, free and happy and loud.

“I’ve never seen him laugh like that,” Preston whispers from where he’s trying to watch the scene discreetly.

Hancock shakes his head. “I haven’t either,” he whispers back.

“That bird,” Preston says. “it’s a raven. I looked it up. That’s why it’s bigger and different sounding than those crows.”

Hancock feels the breath catch in his lungs.

* * *

 

_Do you know what they called me?_

* * *

 

“Watch after them for me,” Jackie tells the raven, and she ( _Nemain, her name is, and it’s a name that whispers of something dark and ancient and **powerful**_ ) croaks back at him. Jackie grins and strokes her iridescent feathers. “C’mon, Hancock. Time to hit the road.”

The raven stares at him with its unblinking three eyes.

“You got it,” Hancock says, and the whole walk away from Sanctuary, he feels the raven’s eyes boring into his back.

* * *

 

“Hancock,” Jackie says, and he shifts uncomfortably. “I need you to- We have to-“ He sighs and looks at the ground. “You know I was there, right? My son, he- he needs me to work with a courser to bring back a synth that’s leading a bunch of raiders. It’ll be like taking out raiders but I have to for- for this. So I don’t… blow my cover.”

And the way Jackie looks, it’s like he’s waiting for the other boot to drop, like he’s waiting for the guillotine to strike, like he’s waiting for Hancock to pull his shotgun out and say no.

And that’s-

Well.

“Yeah, of course. Besides, all synths got their own free will, and if this one decided to be a right asshole about it? Well, the Commonwealth always provides ample opportunities to kick some ass.”

Jackie smiles like the break of dawn over the horizon, and Hancock is well and truly fucked.

* * *

 

Hancock is decidedly _unhappy_ about having the courser breathing down their necks as they move. He’s stealthy, but he’s still loud. Used to movement from Point A to Point B. Jackie sets up camp in Point C, and then waits. Hancock sits behind him and keeps watch and makes sure their cover doesn’t get blown.

The courser looks antsy as Jackie picks off yet another raider. The twelfth in about thirty minutes. Libertalia slowly falls more and more silent as the raiders meet their ends.

After no movement from the sprawling base for another hour, Jackie packs up and pulls out his shotgun. “Let’s go have some fun, shall we?”

* * *

 

Of course, the courser tries to pressure Jackie into using the recall code, to destroying what little life, however twisted, Gabriel built for himself. Jackie just sets his jaw and says _no fucking way_.

The courser ends up using the code, and they kill the other raiders that jump them. Jackie closes his eyes and looks away as the courser teleports away with Gabriel’s motionless body.

“I hate them,” he whispers, as soon as the last linger of static fades from the air, and it’s just the two of them, afloat on a fortress. “It’s _wrong_.”

Hancock sets one hand on Jackie’s shoulder. “They’ll get what’s coming to them. We just gotta bide our time for now.”

Jackie glances up at him, and there’s something wild like desperation and breaking hope in his eyes, and Hancock hopes against hope that he’s not wrong.

* * *

 

Of course. Hancock should have known better.

* * *

 

The worst happens inevitably.

They’re midway through picking off supermutants around the perimeter of an old factory, when he hears it.

A rhythmic beeping, eerie, and faint.

And then, it grows louder, and louder.

Jackie hears it too, as flooded with Psycho as he is, and he spins to look at Hancock, terror in his eyes.

“Hancock,” he says, and Hancock has never heard someone sound so afraid. “Hancock, _run_.”

“Listen, I ain’t leaving you here-“

“The hell you aren’t,” Jackie snarls, and he’s knotting his fingers in the fabric of Hancock’s overcoat and shoving him down the hill they’re on, harder than should be physically possible. The fall knocks the wind from his lungs, and smacks his head a little on the hard side. His ears are ringing and his vision is blurry, and it’s all he can do to look up the hill to see Jackie silhouetted by the moon, his rifle raised to his ear and then he pulls the trigger and-

There’s a deafening boom, and the ground trembles beneath him, the world flashing white, then yellow and grey, and somewhere in the shower of rocks that come raining down the hell, Hancock slips from consciousness.

* * *

 

_Do you know what they called me?_ Jackie’s voice whispers in his warping dream, and all he can see is his shredded outline against a red, red sun.

_I know what I call you,_ Hancock hears himself say back.

The sun expands, growing brighter and hotter, until it swallows Jackie’s frame entirely with a sound like the cracking of a bridge, or the breaking of a promise.

_I know what I call you, too,_ Jackie’s voice whispers from the dark around him.

And then, Hancock wakes up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯


	3. for every hard dollar i make

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> what's in a name?

Hancock wakes up, and his joints are stiff and heavy, his mouth tastes of copper, and it’s more than half a struggle to push himself to his feet.

He hears a deep croak, and jolts up to stare into Nemain’s glittering eyes. She croaks again, and nudges a stimpack towards him with her beak. He can hardly feel his own fingers, and watches, as if in a daze, as he injects it into his own arm. Clarity and relief come quickly after, and he breathes in deep.

“Nemain,” he rasps, his voice torn and ragged, cracking over the syllables of her name. “Nemain, where is he.”

The raven just crooks her head and stares at him. Then she croaks again and tugs at his clothes with her beak.

“Okay,” he says, fighting down the wave of nausea and panic that floods through him. “Okay.”

* * *

 

He searches for hours, tugging over rocks and pushing through rubble until his fingers bleed. Nemain watches him silently.

He finds only scraps of leather, and the torn remains of Jackie’s bandana.

Like the foolish, weak creature he is, he ties it around his wrist, then looks back to Nemain.

“He ain’t here, Nemain. He-“

She croaks at him and tugs at his jacket, and he swallows down the lurching tangle of fear in his throat.

“Okay,” he rasps. “Okay, lead the way.”

* * *

 

And so. She does.

* * *

 

Nemain leads him across the wastes, and even though he’s unsteady on his feet, she keeps him moving, leading him through the valleys, alongside creeks, hidden away from the dangers of the wasteland.

Time seems to blur together and he’s not sure how long he’s been walking, only that his head is pounding, and his ear is ringing, and things are getting lost in the ink-wash flutter of Nemain’s wings, but still he trudges on.

Nemain stops him with a croak after days, weeks, years have passed, and lands on his shoulder in a rush of feathers. Then, nudges his head with her beak until he looks up and catches the glimmer of the lamps, and the curling branches of the tree that hangs over Sanctuary.

He breathes out, and stumbles forward.

* * *

 

It’s MacCready who sees him first, and within heartbeats, is running towards him with a shout. Preston and Stuges follow in short order, and Hancock doesn’t even have the time to realize that Nemain’s vanished. He takes one, stumbling step, and then passes out again.

* * *

 

The worst of it hits when he wakes up.

 _He’s not here,_ Nick tells him, voice soft and scraping rust. _We haven’t seen him since he set out with you_.

 _I looked,_ he croaks. _I looked for hours, until my fingers bled, I looked._

Danse snarls something out under his breath, but in the end, there is nothing any of them can do.

Just mourn.

Deacon and Preston both take the news particularly hard. Deacon vanishes for days on end, searching for clues, for leads.

Preston keeps on patrolling, but there is a desolation in his expression that wasn’t there before, a heartbroken set to his shoulders.

Hancock just closes his eyes, and waits for the Jet to set in.

* * *

 

Danse leaves. _To go keep watch on the other settlements,_ he says. _With the Vault Dweller gone, we have to keep watch on them in his stead._

Hancock understands the jittery, anxious energy that rests beneath his skin, the need to _do something_.

Danse agrees to travel to the further off settlements, and Hancock and Dogmeat will patrol the nearby settlements, as they’ve been doing. MacCready says he’ll cover his back when need be, and between the three of them, they make it work.

MacCready’s good, but he’s not Jackie.

Hancock tries not to think about how much that hurts.

* * *

 

Nemain has been absent from her tree for months now, and every day, the storms roll through.

Carla lights another cigarette under the awning of the building, the faint glow the only light around. “Y’know,” she says as she takes a deep drag, and glances over to where Hancock sits. “Maybe it’s just me, but it feels like-“

Thunder rumbles overhead.

Carla breathes out a cloud of nicotine smoke, and Dogmeat whines from where his head rests in Hancock’s lap.

“It feels like the whole damn world is in mourning. I mean, he was just one guy. But goddamn, he turned places around pretty quick with that rifle of his.”

“Yeah,” Hancock says, then winces as his voice scraps, rusty with disuse.

Carla flicks her cigarette into the rain, and it sizzles out before it hits the cement.

“A damn shame,” she says. “A right damn shame.”

* * *

 

The metal chain with the ring still hangs around his neck.

On good days, it only feels like a noose.

* * *

 

News comes, trickling through traders and caravans. Vault 81 discovers an entire second, secret vault behind the walls of the one they knew about, a cesspool of mole rats and disease, originally intended to use the Vault Dwellers as human experiments.

Quieter still, the whispers of an outsider risking life and limb through the disease ridden, broken down vault to save a child from infection.

Hancock thinks of the cold vault a half mile’s walk away and the way blood looks when it’s frozen.

* * *

 

_Do you know what they called me?_

* * *

 

Deacon pulls Hancock aside one day. “Hey man,” he says. “I just want you to know, there’s rumors out there that something bad’s cooking. The Institute’s gone quiet recently, and we think they’re getting ready to wage full on war.”

Hancock stares. “How high are you?”

“I’m not,” Deacon snaps. “This is serious, everyone’s lives could be at risk.” He sighs, heavy and aggravated. “Just. Be on your guard, Hancock.”

In the trees around them, the crows settle in, their wings whispering, whispering, whispering.

* * *

 

Deacon’s a known liar, but not usually when it comes to things that matter. Not usually about things like _this._

So, Hancock keeps his guard up and an ear to the ground.

Watching.

Waiting.

Between the highs, it’s the most he can do.

* * *

 

The attack, when it does come, shouldn’t have caught them by surprise.

But, when the attack is lead by two Institute coursers, perhaps they were outmatched all along.

Hancock’s on his knees, his heart pounding, and the courser has a rifle to his skull. Preston, Sturges, Deacon are all being shoved down with him, and the courser is speaking, lining them up and the metal ring resting against Hancock’s breastbone is burning a hole into his heart and he sets his jaw, and stares back up at the courser, as fierce and defiant as he can, and he’s trembling, but he’s never been one to go out quietly, not anymore, so he squares his shoulders, and spits in the courser’s face.

The courser stares at him for a long moment. “Very well, you will be dispatched of first,” he says, and Hancock can hear the tightly controlled anger in his voice, and courser or not, they’re still human enough to feel rage.

“Glad t’hear it,” Hancock grins up at him.

The courser digs the rifle into his skull, sharp and painful, and Hancock’s just about made his peace with things but then-

In the distance, the gravelling croak of a raven calls.

The courser pauses, and turns to the other courser dispatched with him. “Were we not informed to watch out for the signals?”

As if spurred on by Nemain’s call, the crows in all the trees around take up the call, a cacophony of chaos and terror and rage.

The coursers look decidedly uneasy, and one turns to the Gen 2’s milling about. “Set up-“

A single shot rings out, and the courser drops to his knees, a clean bullet hole between its eyes.

* * *

 

“The Morrigan,” Kellogg says, and there’s something almost smug in his voice. “The Battle Crow. The Raven of Death. It all comes from one firefight where it was you against about twenty guys. When you walked away, they said the crows feasted for days.” Kellogg bares his teeth. “It’s funny how they kept your face on every poster, and yet you were still their most hailed assassin. How’d you swing it? Being so famous, so well-known, without being caught?”

Jackie breathes out, his body going still. “Would you like to find out?”

He doesn’t wait for an answer, and twenty seconds later, Kellogg and all his synths are dead.

* * *

 

Overhead the crows fly, thick as a cloud and just as chaotic, but Hancock can hardly hear the beat of their wings over the thundering of his heart.

The remaining courser swears, and turns to the other synths. “Get to cover. Use them as shields. Stay down. Use them as hostages if you need to. I will determine where the enemy is shooting from.” The courser activates a Stealth Boy and takes all of three steps before the second shot rings out, and the second courser materializes again, crumpling to the ground.

The crows are cheering, screaming, swirling around them, and the remaining synths are looking around, on high alert. The sky overhead rumbles warningly, black clouds roiling, and the cold winds pick up.

“No sign of target,” one of the synths says.

“Commencing clearance?” another asks, and turns back to face their small group, and yet another bullet cracks through the back of its head, sending it crumbling to the ground, circuitry sparking out on the wet cement.

The remaining synths raise their rifles, closing ranks in the direction of the shot.

The crows coalesce, shrieking and swarming across the field, and suddenly-

_Suddenly-_

A figure appears in the heart of the murder. His hair splayed out behind him, loose, free, and black as an oil-slick cloak, his face streaked with black war paint and blood and grime, the tattoo tracking a clean, ominous line down his chin. The courser’s uniform he’s wearing is torn ragged, the ends frayed like the edges of a crow’s wings, his sniper rifle loose in his hands.

A vision of death, caught between the wings of the flock, and in that moment, all Hancock can see is The Morrigan.

He slides his rifle into its holster on his back and pulls out his pistols, and his expression does not change as he cuts down every Institute synth in Sanctuary.

It’s only once he stands alone among the bodies that the chorusing of the crows fades, and they settle back into the trees.

The Morrigan breathes out.

Breathes in.

Then, pulls out jerky and starts feeding the crows. Nemain sits in her tree and watches.

Hancock can’t bring himself to say anything, and the rest of the Sanctuary folk are staring openly at their savior, unable to believe their eyes.

Silence reigns.

* * *

 

The crows take wing after minutes have passed, and within seconds, it’s them, a bunch of dead synths, and-

And-

The Morrigan sighs out, and his posture shifts from avenging dark angel to a familiar slight slouch, and in the space between breaths, _Jackie’s_ tying his hair back into its bun, fighting with his hair as he tries to manage it, and cursing under his breath as his Pip-Boy freezes on him

Hancock takes a step forward. Then another.

Jackie glances up, and it’s like watching Diamond City catch fire, the green against the gold burning in his eyes. Then, the corner of his mouth pulls up. “Hey. Long time no see, stranger.”

Hancock huffs. “Nice of you to drop by. I was beginning to think you’d forgotten all about me.”

Jackie’s expression goes soft and wounded. “Hancock,” he says, and just hearing his name in that voice is like being struck all over again. “I could never.”

“Holy shit,” MacCready says somewhere behind him and Jackie blinks, then touches his own face.

“Oh, shit.”

“ _Holy shit_ ,” MacCready says again, louder and more fervently. “You’re the guy!”

Jackie puts his face in his hands and Hancock-

Hancock laughs.

* * *

 

It takes hours for things to settle, for Jackie to apologize desperately to Preston (who definitely does _not_ tear up when Jackie hugs him), explain everything to MacCready, and Nick, and Cait, and _especially_ to Nick, who’s complaining about how Jackie let him think that he was the only guy who remembered things from before the war, aside from Daisy, and for Jackie to make sure that everyone is safe and secure, and that no one’s injuries are too terrible.

“I’ll be,” Nick says softly from where he stands next to Hancock, watching Jackie try and weasel himself back into Carla’s favor. “You know, I’m a synth, but they gave me the real Nick Valentine’s memories. That man there? He was on all the posters, and there was always some news report about him of some sort or another. I never thought any of it was real. Thought to myself, _there’s no way one guy can be that good_. I can’t decide if I’m happy or horrified to be proven wrong.”

“Yeah,” Hancock says, because really, what else is there to be said?

“The rumors I heard about him. Did you know what they used to call him?”

* * *

 

He’s sitting on the edge of his bed when Jackie slips through the door to join him.

“Hey.”

“Hey yourself. You look fuckin’ exhausted. Everything go okay?” Hancock asks. It’s superficial and trite, but he just-

“Yeah,” Jackie says back, his voice quiet, and in the dim light of the fire through the poorly patched walls, he’s the most beautiful thing that Hancock’s ever seen.

“You wanna talk about it?”

Jackie looks at him for a long moment, _really_ looks at him. “Can I-“ he hesitates, looking increasingly nervous. “Can you come here?”

“Yeah, of course,” Hancock says and he pushes to his feet. “What’cha need?”

Jackie hesitates again, then reaches out, and pulls him in tight, his arms wrapping around him warm and solid and _real_. He smells like blood and dirt and grit and like the acrid tang of radiation on the roof of his mouth, but his hair is soft against his cheek, and his hands are warm against Hancock’s back, and Hancock-

Hancock wraps his arms around Jackie and holds on.

* * *

 

 _Whisper_ , Desdemona and the Railroad crew call him.

 _Vault Dweller_ , the Diamond City folks call him.

 _The Morrigan_ , the ghosts of his past and present whisper at him.

Hancock only knows him as Jackie.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks again for the reviews, yall are too kind.
> 
> i hope the name reveal lives up to its buildup. finding the right name and the right setup for it was particularly difficult, i didn't want it to be something cheap or simple, i wanted it to be something that like. resonated, so i really hope i hit that mark here


	4. there stands a white man just to take it away

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> jackie explains some things, fights some things, and mourns some things.

“The bomb went off,” Jackie says softly as they sit, shoulder to shoulder, the warm line of Jackie’s arm burning against his own. “I felt the heat, and then the molecular relay grabbed me. I passed out somewhere in there, and I came too in just a hospital gown in the Institute. They said they were going to move on the Railroad, said they were gonna take out Sanctuary. And I-“ Jackie glances over at him, his eyes sad, sad, sad. “I couldn’t let that happen. He’s my son, I couldn’t- I couldn’t hurt him, but my I couldn’t teleport out without the courser chip in my Pip-Boy, so I jumped one of the basic synths, and took his shit and held a gun to one of the lead engineer’s heads. I demanded they teleport me out, so they did. Dropped me off in the crater in just my hospital gown with a synth rifle. No stims, to radaway, nothing.”

“Shit,” Hancock hisses out under his breath. “No wonder you smell like rads, you probably sucked down more than enough to make you go ghoul.”

Jackie huffs a laugh. “I made it to Virgil’s cave, and that was enough to get me patched up. He had a spare shirt and pair of fatigues and enough radaway and rad-x to get me out of the Glowing Sea in one piece. Then from there it was just- following the trail of blood and synth parts to find out where they were going.”

“Did you run into any trouble in the Glowing Sea?” Hancock asks softly.

Jackie turns his head away, and it’s enough so Hancock can make out the top of a wicked looking new scar. “Nothing I couldn’t handle,” Jackie says back, and Hancock almost doesn’t press.

Almost.

“So, ferals or radscorpions?”

Jackie looks at his hands. “You know that I’m a good shot,”

Hancock thinks about the carnage he bore witness to only a few hours prior. “Yeah, I’d say you’re pretty alright.”

Jackie elbows him. “Smartass,” but it’s teasing, gentle. “Anyways. I got. Jumped by a deathclaw.”

There’s a long silence, and Hancock goes still. Breathes in. Breathes out. “I reckon it came out looking worse than you, since you’re still here.”

“Yeah,” Jackie says. “Yeah. I cut a path through the rest of the Commonwealth. Got sidetracked at this other Vault. Some kid was dying and I. Well, couldn’t let that happen. Anyways, grabbed a rifle off some poor sap gunner who thought he could outshoot me at some point and a few other guns off folks I killed. Nemain found me somewhere in there and was pretty eager to get me back here in time, and I’m just-“ Jackie looks over at him, and there’s something worried and aching and terribly broken in his expression. “I’m just glad I made it in time.”

“As much as was looking forward to no longer having a head on my shoulders, I guess I can go on with living,” Hancock says, and there’s a quirk to his lips, and Jackie elbows him again.

“Ever since the fight. The one Kellogg talked about. The crows always followed me around. I fed them snacks when I could, since they’re a useful distraction and a good cover. Nemain found me after one of my assassination missions, when I was stuck deep behind enemy lines. She lead me out and warned me when people were coming, and didn’t really leave my side after that.”

“Why name her that?”

Jackie smiles, and it’s a fragile, nostalgic thing. “Nemain was the personification of the chaos of war in the old stories. Her call was said to strike fear into the hearts of men who hear it.”

Hancock snorts. “Well, brother, you got that one all wrong. I promise you, all of us who heard her a few hours ago only felt relief.”

Jackie looks back at him, and his eyes are soft, so soft, glimmering like the warm embers of a fire. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

* * *

 

“Hey,” Hancock says, as they’re hiking along the road to check up on one of the other settlements, where Danse has been holed up.

“Yeah?” Jackie asks, glancing over his shoulder.

“I kept your ring safe for you. You want it back?”

Jackie freezes, then stares at him for a long time. His bandana is back in place, and he’s cleaner that he’s been in months, having scrubbed himself down in the river around Sanctuary. “I- No, if it’s not too much trouble could you-“

Hancock grins and lets the chain slip back beneath his shirt. “Yeah, I’ll keep an eye on it for you.”

He notices, in a vague sense, that the ring that’s sat on Jackie’s left hand is no longer there.

Jackie nods once, looking relieved, before turning back to the quiet road ahead.

* * *

 

Jackie shifts uneasily as Proctor Ingrahm rattles off the list of things he needs to grab to rebuild Liberty Prime, but Hancock’s attention is all on the Knight who’s glaring at him across the way.

“Give me a reason to put you down, ghoul,” the Knight hisses, and the voices behind him go silent.

Hancock grins, feeling the familiar prickle of Jackie’s eyes at his back. “Think you better watch your mouth, friend. It’s getting you into trouble.”

The Knight rolls his eyes so hard, Hancock’s half surprised they don’t fall out. Then, to Jackie he says; “You keep track of your ghoul. I don’t want to be the one picking up chunks of it later.”

Jackie jumps off the platform and walks over, his gait unnaturally smooth and dangerous. “Is that so,” he murmurs, and there’s something terrifying in those eyes of his and the Knight looks at him, startled.

“It could turn feral any minute now, you know that-“

Hancock bares his teeth. “Wanna try me?”

Jackie steps between them, one hand, gentle and warm, against Hancock’s chest. “While I’m sure Hancock could deal with you easily, _knight_ ,” and the way he says knight is an insult in and of itself, “why don’t you address the problems you have with him, with _me_.”

The knight scowls. “You’re in the brotherhood now. You play by brotherhood rules.”

“Is that so,” Jackie says, and Hancock’s skin prickles. The crows in the trees around them watch, quiet and interested. “Who’s going to make me, then? You?”

The Knight pales. “N-No, Knight.”

Jackie smiles, and it’s cruel and terrifying and vicious in all the ways that set Hancock’s blood racing. “Then I suggest you _shut your mouth_.”

* * *

 

Word must get around, because the Brotherhood Knights never say another word against him.

* * *

 

“They don’t scare me, you know,” Hancock tells Jackie later.

Jackie grins. “Y’know, I’d bet there’s nothing in this wasteland that scares you.”

Hancock thinks about the way Jackie looked, a dim silhouette against the gloom of the sky, as the frantic beep of the suicider came ever closer. “Yeah,” he says after a pause. “yeah, sure.”

“I know you aren’t scared of them, Hancock. Doesn’t mean they have any damn right to say that shit. Especially not to the folks I love.”

Then Jackie stands, and wanders off to clean his rifle, like he didn’t just take Hancock’s heart and wrench it from his chest.

* * *

 

“There’s so many fucking coffee makers, so many fucking coffee cups, but _no fucking coffee_.” Jackie moans and sits down, his head in his hands. “I just want some fucking coffee. Is that too much to ask.”

Hancock just laughs at him.

* * *

 

Danse ends up being a synth, to everyone’s surprise.

To no one’s surprise, though, Jackie defends him, spitting insults right back at Maxson as they snarl and hiss at each other.

“He’s an abomination! He’s against everything we believe in!”

“You keep saying _we_ , Maxson. Say that one more time, and there will only be a _you_.”

Maxson backs down first.

Danse is surprised by that.

Hancock is not.

Jackie’s spine is made from steel, and he has stared death in the face. A jumped up, self-important wasteland asshole is nothing compared to that. For however cruel and unforgiving this wasteland is, if the stories Nick have told him are true, the world that Jackie came for was infinitely worse.

_Picket fences and lies, Hancock_ , Nick told him one night over dinner. _The world before? Just picket fences and a bunch of folks pretending they weren’t one disaster away from destruction_.

* * *

 

Even more surprising, is after a long string of insults from Elder Maxson, Jackie ends up  _promoted_ , of all things.

_Maxson,_ Jackies tells him, and the air chills.  _I don't fear you. Spit all the insults at me you want, neither you, nor anyone in this fucking ships scares me. It would do you well to stop fucking posturing_.

Maxson doesn't stop posturing, because he's stubborn, an ass, and so hellbent and twisted in his ideals that he can't see reason. But the gruff, condescending tone to his voice fades just so, and judging by the way the corners of Jackie's eyes crinkle, he can tell.

Hancock wonders if Jackie is really, fully aware of the power he has over people.

* * *

 

“ _The devil’s gonna make me a free man,_ ” Jackie sings to himself, soft in the pale light of early dawn as he cleans the grit and dirt from the barrel of his rifle. “ _The devil’s gonna set me free_. _Ain’t got no place to call a home, only chains and broken bones_.”

Hancock keeps his eyes closed, and doesn’t dare stir, curled on his cot as he is.

_Got no place to call a home, so come on Lord, won’t you take me now_.

* * *

 

“You saved me,” Danse says to Jackie, his voice all soft. Hancock is around the corner, laying on his cot, and trying not to tense up at the way Danse’s voice sounds.

“You’re as human as anyone I know, Danse. Just like every other synth I know.”

“I actually wanted to speak with you about that,” and Danse’s voice pitches gentle, and Hancock _knows_.

Jackie, though, bless his heart, sounds clueless as ever about this. “Yeah, sure. What’s up-“

His voice cuts off abruptly, and there is silence.

Then Jackie breathes, just a little winded and run ragged. “Danse,” he says softly. “I can’t.”

“I… see. Is it because I’m-“

“No!” Jackie cuts in, and his voice is clogged in a weird way, and there’s a tremble that Hancock’s never heard in it, and it’s taking all of his will not to get up and run around the corner.

Danse sucks in a breath. “You’re crying. Is this because of-“

“No,” Jackie says again, and there’s a pause, and then a thump and a weak, sniffling noise.

“You’re clearly, very upset about this-“

“Danse, it’s not you, and it’s not because you’re a synth,” Jackie chokes out. “You aren’t- you aren’t to blame for this, I, I just-“

Quiet, and a high pitched whine, and Hancock’s getting to his feet, checking that he’s got chems stowed in his pockets, and walks out the door with the ‘intent to take a stroll’.

“It’s been a year,” comes Jackie’s ragged whisper. “One year, for me. I. I can’t, Danse. I’m sorry. I- I can’t.”

“My apologies,” Danse says, and his voice is quiet, subdued. “I will… speak with you about this later, them.”

Jackie doesn’t respond, and Hancock waits until he can’t hear Danse’s footsteps.

Then, he slips around the corner, finding Jackie sitting on the ground, his back pressed against the wall, his head in his hands, his shoulders shaking. Quiet, shuddering gasps slip out every now and then, but for the most part, Jackie cries silently, and Hancock says nothing, just sits down beside him, and says nothing.

A few minutes pass, and Jackie turns, pressing his face into Hancock’s shoulder, and Hancock reaches up to run his fingers through the silky, spilled ink black of his hair.

They stay like that until the light of dawn crests the horizon.

* * *

 

They don’t talk about it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Im a sucker for slow burns. Also. Bethesda wtf why cant danse’s opinons abt the brotherhood and railroad change after you max out approval and pass the right speech checks. Like, cmooonn. Hes a fuckin synth let him believe in synth liberation
> 
> anyways thanks for reviewing, as always! this is a fun pet project and i haven't run out of steam on it yet which is,,, something.


	5. some might say i talk loud, see if i care

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> jackie gets in an argument, a fight, and then faces down the worst the wasteland has to offer.
> 
> and maybe hancock's a bit of a fool, because jackie holds his hand through it all

“Hancock,” Jackie says. “I need your help.”

“You got it.” Giving his everything for Jackie comes as easy as breathing.

Hancock thinks, maybe, it’s this way for all of Jackie's companions.

* * *

 

The predicament and situation is simple.

They are going to war with the Brotherhood, in order to remain undercover in the Institute, to secure the synth’s freedom.

“What, they only have, some couple hundred suits of power armor, a giant robot armed with nuclear weapons, and tons of those vertibirds. It’ll be easy.”

Jackie rolls his eyes. “Thanks for the vote of confidence, Hancock.”

“They might have all of that, but we have you, Jackie. They don’t stand a chance”

Jackie looks at him then, _really_ looks at him. “Yeah?” he says in that soft, damning tone.

“Yeah,” Hancock says. “yeah.”

* * *

 

They develop a system pretty quickly. Hancock keeps an eye to the skies and an ear to the ground.

_Vertibird inbound_ , he’ll say, and Jackie will drop down into whatever nook or cranny is around, pull out his rifle, and breathe out.

When the vetibird explodes in a shower of smokes and debris, Jackie just sighs out. “I really wish there was a way to explain this to Maxson. I’d rather not have to tear through his entire army by myself.”

“’S too late for that now, brother,” Hancock tells him, his voice scraping. “Besides, Maxson’s head is too far up his ass to see reason, anyways.”

Jackie huffs a laugh. “Can’t argue there. C’mon, let’s blow this popsicle stand.”

* * *

 

Danse is furious when he finds out, and Hancock watches how his hands shake, and the way betrayal writes itself in the line of his shoulders.

“It’s the only way I can destroy the Institute and keep synths safe, Danse,” Jackie yells. “You saw the way Maxson looked at you. Do you think, that if the Institute was killed before they were, there would be _any_ way for me to keep them away from you? Do you think there would be any way for me to keep all the other innocent synths safe? Some of them don’t even _know_ they’re synths, and if Maxson had his way, he would cut them all down!”

“Whatever they fed you on that ship, you know that ain’t right, tin can,” Hancock adds, hands clenched in useless fists.

“I thought- I thought you believed in the Brotherhood’s mission,” Danse says then, his voice stifled, breaking.

Jackie breathes out. “I believe in parts of it. Humanity has done terrible, dangerous things with technology. And we are all fools, on this earth. It’s a mistake we will never stop repeating. But we did it willingly, and we did it to ourselves. If Maxson had his way, none of us would have the choice to be fools. We wouldn’t have the choice to protest the Brotherhood. We wouldn’t have a choice to say they’re wrong. They would kill you. They’d kill Hancock. And you _know_ that, Danse.”

It’s maybe the most Jackie has ever said in one go, and there’s something terrible and broken in his face and his voice.

_Picket fences and lies. Just picket fences and a bunch of folks pretending they weren’t one disaster away from destruction._

Jackie doesn’t talk about the world before, much. But, the way his eyes glitter gold as he speaks says more than enough.

Danse is quiet. “I don’t agree with you. The Brotherhood was here to keep people safe.”

“The second they knew you were a synth, they wanted you executed. They didn’t fucking care about how hard you had worked for them, or about everything you sacrificed for them. They don’t fucking care, Danse.” Then, quieter. “I know about people like them. They always say it’s for safety, for security. It _never_ is.”

Danse looks away. “I. Need to think about this.” And then he’s gone, and Jackie is gripping his rifle so tight, his knuckles are turning white.

Jackie breathes out, ragged and shaking. “I don’t like being used, Hancock. Not by people like that.”

“They’re gonna get what’s coming to them. They just went to war with the wrong assholes.”

Jackie laughs, and while it’s thin and hollow, it’s enough.

It’s more than enough.

* * *

 

Jackie sticks to moving and taking care of business in the few hours of dawn, and in the few hours past sunset. During the day, he helps fix up settlements and farms with defenses and lighting and food and water, and at night he lays on his back under the stars and tries to sleep ( _he rarely can_ ).

When dawn breaks on the horizon, they’re already on the move, Jackie settling into his sniper’s perch a mile out from a supermutant fortress.

“There’s rumors about the Museum of Witchcraft having something evil in it. What do you say we check it out?”

Hancock snorts. “Only you would take rumors about death and destruction and waltz on over to stick your nose in it.”

Jackie shrugs a shoulder, but there’s an air of humor that glints in his eyes, and Hancock is so royally fucked.

“Yeah, alright. C’mon, sunshine. Let’s get this freakshow on the road.”

* * *

 

It’s worse than anything either of them could have predicted.

The deathclaw’s scales glitter bronzed red, and the very air fragments as it roars. Jackie is shouting, firing round after round into its skull, but the damn thing just isn’t taking damage. The thing lowers its massive head, eyes locked on Hancock, and charges.

The last thing he registers is the stink of rot on the things breath, and the feeling of claws tearing through his back.

* * *

 

He wakes, though, jolting awake with his breath rattling in his chest, and his back burning, burning, burning.

“Jackie,” he rasps.

“Easy,” a voice soothes. “Just take it easy.” Jackie’s face comes into focus above him, and he’s streaked in blood, and there’s gore spattered in that thick hair of his, but he’s alive.

Hancock breathes in, eyelids drooping shut once more. “Oh. Good,” he says, and Jackie huffs a laugh.

“Can’t get rid of me that easy, mayor.”

Hancock grumbles out something, but his head is buzzing. “Did’ja… drug me?”

“Shh,” Jackie hushes him. “I got you some Med-X, and the stimpacks are still trying to do their work. Just relax, alright? The thing’s dead, you and I are alive. Just relax and let the drugs fix you up, Hancock.”

“John,” he rasps at last, and Jackie glances back down at him. “M’ name’s John.”

Jackie smiles like the fire-gold break of sunset spreading across the sky, and as he slips back to sleep, Hancock wonders if he’s ever seen anything so beautiful.

* * *

 

Of course he’s too drugged to realize he slurs this out as he lapses back into unconsciousness.

He also misses the gentle way Jackie touches his cheek, and whispers back _you’re no Mona Lisa, but you’re still the handsomest guy I’ve seen in this Wasteland_.

* * *

 

Jackie doesn’t bring it up, and Hancock, the fool he is, resigns himself to pine in silence.

* * *

 

Of course, Jackie is all mixed up with morals in the strangest of ways, and he insists they bring the egg back to its Deathclaw parent.

“How do you know that thing isn’t just going to destroy us the second we walk up to it?”

Jackie looks at the horizon, and the wind blows the loose strands from his face. In the trees, the crows watch.

“If you have a respect for nature, she will respect you as well.”

Hancock glances over at him. “That lovely scar on your neck says otherwise.”

Jackie shrugs a shoulder. “May not have been my choice, but I was still in his territory. The laws of nature are straightforward. Equal exchange, boundaries, property. It’s not difficult to figure out.”

Hancock just laughs. “You’re something else, Jackie. But, I think you’re just the right kind of trouble this place needs.”

Jackie grins back at him, the Deathclaw egg nestled in a jacket in his arms.

* * *

 

The Deathclaw scales down the sheer face of the cliff, the rock clicking under its claws as the shale gives way. This one is larger, gleaming a bloodied red-gold-bronze in the setting light of the sun. Jackie kneels before it, sliding the egg gently into the nest, before rising, his chin held high, to make eye contact with the beast.

The Deathclaw stalks forward, the earth shaking beneath the weight of it, it’s claws glittering and stained.

Hancock takes a step back.

The Deathclaw never looks away from Jackie, as it pushes dirt over the egg, burying and protecting it, then dropping down on all fours, hovering protectively over it, but not defensively. Not aggressively.

Jackie breathes in, and takes a slow step backwards. Then another. The Deathclaw relaxes, but its gaze does not waver as Jackie walks back, away from it. After enough steps, the creature, sinks to the ground and curls around its nest, and Jackie grabs Hancock’s hand, and tangles their fingers together as they walk away.

Jackie doesn’t mention the way Hancock trembles, just so.

Once they’re a relatively safe distance away, Hancock glances over at Jackie, and grins in a weak, sort of helpless way. “Well, that wasn’t so bad.”

Jackie laughs, and as the sunset paints the ground crimson and ochre and gold, Hancock thinks whatever future is to be had, here in the open plains of the wasteland, he’ll gladly walk to at Jackie’s side.

The sun sinks below the horizon, and the stars shimmer above them, and through the night, Jackie just keeps holding on to Hancock’s hand.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a shorter one, the end is in sight. i know im mostly just writing this for myself but for anyone who cares i've got the next three chapters mostly written so hopefully i can close the chapter on this soon


	6. unlike them, don't walk away from fear

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> brotherhood who?

“Maxson was wrong to react about me the way he did. But you had no right turning against your own men like that. You’re a soldier, what came over you?”

Jackie squares his shoulders, and pulls down his bandana. Here, in only his flannel, pants, and combat boots, he looks smaller. Like a real person, and less like the imposing, invincible figure he feels like at times.

“Because it was the right thing to do. I stuffed down my morals and shot and killed for people I should have turned against from the start once before. Never again. And you know that I’m right, in this.”

Danse glares. “You would fight and kill Rhys and Haylen?”

Jackie sighs and looks away. “I’d rather not. I’d rather Maxson packed up his little balloon and his crew of tin cans and just fucking left. I can deal with this-“

Danse punches him across the face. Hard.

Hancock’s got his gun trained on Danse before Jackie can even recover from where he’s curled on the ground.

“P-put the gun down, Hancock. I deserved that,” Jackie grits out. He spits, and there’s blood, but he stumbles to his feet and shoots a wobbling grin at Danse. “I deserved that. You ready to head out? You and I already shot down a Vertibird, Danse. They’re just as against you now as they were before.”

Danse makes some unarticulated noise of anger, and Hancock thinks he might just punch Jackie again, before the fight drains from him, the tense line of his shoulders going weak. “On your orders,” he says at long last.

Jackie gives Hancock a sad, sad, smile, and then he’s off, Danse clunking along in his power armor after him.

Hancock sighs, lights a cigarette, and breathes in.

* * *

 

The days pass, slow and tiring.

The occasional hum of the vertibirds echoes across the settlements, and it’s a tense moment where the Brotherhood knights will eye their settlement, before turning away, the rumble of the engines fading into the still of the day.

Preston sighs and lowers his rifle from besides Hancock. “You know, you’d think they’d just stop coming ‘round, after a while. They know were too damn fortified for them to take us. So what’s the point?”

Hancock watches the glimmer of steel vanish into the blue, blue sky. “They want us to know they’re watching. It’s intimidation.”

Preston grins, and it’s amused and just a bit reckless. “Well, they’re welcome to try us.”

And that, that brings a smile to Hancock’s face. “Hell yeah they are, brother. They ain’t gonna stand a damn chance.”

* * *

 

Danse returns alone again, weeks later.

“Jackie returned to the Institute. He said it was a gamble to talk himself back into their good graces. For the sake of the synths.

Hancock curses under his breath. “Of course he did. Of _course_ he did.”

Danse looks away. “Despite our differences, he is… a good man.”

“You mean he finally talked some sense into you?”

Danse glares, but says nothing as he turns and stalks away.

* * *

 

Jackie shows up, breathless and frantic in a burst of light. “Hancock,” he says, and his eyes are wide, and so so scared. “Hancock, the Brotherhood’s going to attack the Railroad, we _have_ to warn them!”

Hancock is slinging his pack onto his back and loading up his shotgun within seconds. “We don’t got time to waste, then, c’mon!”

Jackie is hot on his heels, Nemain swooping down low over their heads.

“Take us to them, as fast as you can,” Jackie shouts up at her, and she croaks back, before wheeling off the road, and down into the valleys and open plains of the Commonwealth.

Jackie follows Nemain without a second thought, just the same way that Hancock follows Jackie.

* * *

 

“They’re coming, Dez,” Jackie manages to get out, but Desdemona looks wildly unimpressed.

“Whisper, who? Who’s coming? The Institute?”

Jackie shakes his head. “Brotherhood. On their way now. Board up the front entrance and-“

A deafening explosion, and Headquarters rocks dangerously, and the blood drains from Desdemona’s face.

Jackie looks grim, and his eyes go hard. His bandana remains firmly in place, and he pulls his pistols out of their holsters. “Dez,” he says, and his voice is soft, so soft, and so, so dangerous. “Dez, do you know what they called me?”

Nemain croaks a warning, and then the Brotherhood is through the walls, and they are fighting.

* * *

 

By the time they reach Glory, she is bleeding out on the ground.

“ _Glory_ ,” Jackie says, and his voice is choked and terrible in a way that Hancock’s never heard before. “Glory, no, c’mon lovely, don’t you die on me,” and he’s picking her up, cradling her in his arms.

“None of them got past me,” she rasps.

“No, no they didn’t, you were incredible, Glory. You always are. Just, breathe easy. I’m gonna get you patched up-“

Glory coughs up blood, and her hair is stained with it, and it’s slicking over Jackie’s fingers, where they’re pressed against the wound in her stomach. “There’s no time, there’s no time- just _leave-_ “

And here, Hancock can see Jackie set his jaw. “No,” he says, low and dangerous. “Hell. Fucking. No.”

And he’s fishing out a Med-X and several stimpacks, bandages, and whiskey. “This is going to hurt, Glory. Stay with me, lovely.”

Hancock thinks of the lovely, delicate woman, frozen in time, and the soft, fond way Jackie spoke of her, and drops to his knees beside Jackie to help patch Glory together.

This time, he thinks he understands Jackie’s desperation to save her.

* * *

 

Glory lives, but it’s a near thing, and Jackie’s hands, his armor, his clothes are all stained red, red, red afterwards, and there’s a darkness in his eyes that Hancock doesn’t want to ask about.

“They need to be stopped,” Desdemona says, from where she’s keeping a vigil besides Glory’s sleeping form.

Jackie nods, once, and Desdemona nods back. “Make it happen.”

Jackie breathes in.

Breathes out.

“As you say,” he says, and his voice is hard, and quiet, and deadly.

Nemain croaks, and Jackie slings his rifle over his shoulder, and walks out, bloodstained and beautiful.

* * *

 

Hancock thinks, with a bit of a sardonic smile, the Brotherhood and that fool Maxson have no idea what they’ve just unleashed.

* * *

 

Rhys and Haylen are indeed at the Police Station, but Jackie doesn’t blink from where he lays on his perch, and shoots down everything that lives.

“Hancock, take them through the station. I’ll stay here and watch incoming.”

Hancock nods, and reloads his shotgun.

* * *

 

The walk onto the roof of the Police Station in time to see an incoming Vertibird go up in flames.

"Target down," Jackie's voice comes through the walkie talkie.

Deacon shakes his head. "God. Damn."

* * *

 

“Take these Stealth Boys,” Deacon says, and Jackie nods, his expression flat.

“Stay here, Hancock,” Jackie says then.

Hancock breathes in, and nods.

The corners of Jackie’s eyes crinkle just enough that it’s almost a smile, and then he’s activating his Stealth Boy, and he’s gone.

* * *

 

One, very tense hour later, he materializes between Hancock and Deacon.

“Go, get the fuck out of here,” he hisses. Tom jumps, and Deacon startles, but Hancock just grins. “You heard the man, Tom.”

Tom grumbles something under his breath, but in seconds they’re airborne, and far enough away to watch the Prydwyn light up the sky in a horrifying explosion.

Besides him, Jackie breathes out a ragged sigh, and slumps forward, the battle calm slipping from him in the space between breaths.

“It’s over, then,” he rasps, and Hancock rubs a hand down Jackie's back in what he hopes is a soothing motion.

“Yeah, brother,” he says. “Yeah, it’s over.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> why can't u ride radstags,,,,, the real question,,,,,
> 
> also why cant u save glory in game!!!!!
> 
> sorry for the short chapter, next chapter will be longer


	7. i've busted bones, broken stones, looked the devil in the eye

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> filicide can break even the strongest of men, and jackie's never claimed to be all that strong.

“Meet with Z1,” Desdemona says. “Take over the relay, and we’ll teleport in to join you take them down.”

Jackie closes his eyes and looks away, his hands clenching into useless fists. Then he breathes out and slumps, a few strands of his midnight hair jogging loose and falling like a curtain over his face. “Yeah,” he says, after a pause. “Yeah, okay.”

* * *

 

“You need to kill them, so we can begin,” Z1 whispers.

Jackie closes his eyes, and looks back to the oblivious scientists minding their own business.

“Can’t we give them a chance to surrender first?” he hisses back.

Z1 shakes his head. “It’s too risky. If the coursers or the other synths find out what’s going on too soon, all hope will be lost. You must kill them.”

Jackie closes his eyes and thinks of the blood staining his hands. Then breathes in, and pulls out his pistols.

* * *

 

Desdemona teleports in first, gun at the ready, only to lower it as she looks at the carnage in the room. “Well,” she says, “you certainly took care of them.”

Jackie looks away.

Moments later, Hancock and the rest of the Railroad is on the relay platform and _in_ the Institute itself.

“C’mon,” Jackie says, and his eyes are distant, unfocused. “We have to move.”

Hancock reloads his shotgun, and settles in at Jackie’s six.

Whatever happens, he has Jackie’s back.

* * *

 

“You had us all fooled.”

Jackie closes his eyes. “I can’t stop it now, even if I wanted to,” Jackie whispers, and it’s the death rattling rasp of a broken, broken, man.

“I thought you actually cared about this. About the future of humanity. About your _son_.”

Jackie turns his head away, before setting his jaw. “You knew it was wrong, Shaun. The way you treated them. You gave them life, and then expected them to be slaves. You’re my son. But I can’t-“ Jackie’s voice chokes off. “I can’t.”

“You were a _weapon_.” Shaun’s voice is hard, and books no compromise, and at this Jackie’s head snaps back to look at him. “You were a weapon, crafted to shift the tides of war. Perhaps I was foolish to believe that you would let your son wield you.”

“I was used.” Jackie’s voice cracks. “I was used, and I killed innocent people, and when you were born, I promised myself that I never would again. Never would be used again, never would blindly kill at someone else’s whim.”

“Instead, you only kill at your own whim.”

“Look me in the eye, Shaun,” Jackie says, and there’s something hard and bitter and broken in his voice. “Look me in the eye and _tell_ me they’re not real. Artificially made or not, they feel. The Turing test got its ass handed to it by these synths. For all intents and purposes, they’re _real people_ , and you made them _slaves_.”

Shaun looks away, and there’s a set to his jaw that’s so familiar.

After all, like father, like son.

“It was wrong, Shaun. It was wrong and you know it.”

Shaun says nothing, and there is heartbreak in Jackie’s eyes.

A long silence passes.

“Come with me, Shaun,” Jackie says softly, so softly. “Come with me. It’s never too late. We can repurpose one of the old hospitals up top on the surface, get some IV bags up and cleaned and working. We can be together, as a family.”

Shaun says nothing and Jackie huffs a weak, breaking laugh.

“You know, it’s been two years that I’ve been up on the surface. There’s not a day that goes past that I don’t wonder what your mother would think of me. But. I knew her well. We shared the same heart and the same goals and dreams. We wanted you to help fight for a better world. We wanted you to learn from my mistakes and be a better person. We wanted you to help change the world for the better. And you certainly changed it. Kidnapping people, replacing them with robots in the dead of night. Letting people live in a constant state of fear and terror. And instead of taking care of the raiders, and the gunners, and creating a safer world up top, you only hurt innocent people just trying to make their living. Your mother would be disappointed in you. And me? I’m just so fucking sorry, Shaun. I’m sorry I didn’t break out of that cryo cell, kill Kellogg and those other two. I’m sorry I didn’t get here soon enough. I’m sorry you went sixty years of this hellhole brainwashing you into having no conscience, no morality, and only the most Machiavellian outlook on life.” Jackie’s breathless, and his voice is cracking, breaking, and Shaun just says nothing.

Jackie sighs out and closes his eyes tightly, and as close as he’s standing, Hancock can see the tears running freely down his face, hidden behind the bandana. Jackie seems to realize this and pulls the bandana down. “I know you thought you knew me. Just. Give me something, anything. I don’t like doing this, but I can’t stop it. Give me something, and whoever doesn’t fight back, whoever is innocent here, I swear, I will protect them with my life.”

“Nine-four-zero-four,” Shaun says, and Jackie breathes in a stuttering, shaking breath.

“Okay,” he says. “Okay.”

* * *

 

“Dad?” the kid says, and Hancock can see the exact moment Jackie’s heart splits clean open, and he drops to his knees to pull the kid in tight for a hug.

“Of course, Shaun,” Jackie breathes out, all ragged and broken. “Of course. I’m not going to leave you. I won’t leave _you_.”

“Go, I’ll watch the kid,” Tom says, and Jackie casts one last, desperate look back at the kid.

“I’ll be back,” he promises, as he’s towed away by the Railroad agents. “Shaun, I’ll be back for you, I promise.”

There’s something desolate in Jackie’s eyes.

Something far too desolate and far too broken.

* * *

 

“I’ll let you do the honors, Whisper,” Desdemona says, and there’s amusement in her voice as she hands Jackie the detonator. Jackie’s bandana is back, securely in place, but Hancock doesn’t miss the pain that flashes through his eyes.

“I. Dez, you orchestrated all of this. Please, I insist.”

Dez shrugs, and takes the detonator back. “Sure, if you insist, I won’t argue with that.”

Jackie doesn’t look away as the skyline lights up white, then orange, then red, a shockwave of smoke and debris radiating out from the epicenter, but there is something dark and terrible in his eyes, something that looks a little too close to resignation.

Desdemona sets the detonator down, and turns back to Jackie. “Our work is never done, though. I’ll see you back at HQ.”

And then she, and the rest of the Railroad members are gone, and it’s just Hancock and Jackie, alone on a quiet roof, watching the dust cloud fade.

“What do you say to someone who’s just murdered their own son?” Jackie asks, and his voice is deceptively light.

And then, he’s pulling his bandana down, and scrubbing the back of his hand across his eyes, and sinking to his knees.

“Hey,” Hancock says, sitting down, slinging an arm across Jackie’s broad, trembling shoulders, pulling him in close. “I know it’s terrible, I can’t imagine what that feels like. But look. Look at all those synths you’ve freed. Look at the little Shaun. They’re all gonna be free now, and you did that. From the way it looks to me? He was no more your son than he saw you as a father. You get a second chance, brother. Not a lot of folks can say that.”

Jackie says nothing, but buries his face in Hancock’s neck and curls his hands into Hancock’s clothes.

Hancock just holds on.

* * *

 

“Thanks, John,” Jackie whispers, after hours have passed.

“No problem, Jackie. No problem.”

* * *

 

Jackie’s still shaking as the sun crests over the horizon, but there’s a steadiness to his gaze that wasn’t there before.

“Well,” he breathes out, a sardonic quirk to his lips. “I guess we better get on the road, huh? Dez has shit for us to do.”

Hancock grins back, but this time, it’s gentled, softened in the light of the sunrise. “Yeah, brother. Let’s go kick some ass.”

* * *

 

Hancock knows that Jackie won’t sleep easy for months, maybe even years.

But, it’s something.

It’s _something._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> why isnt ur player character more torn up over blowing up shaun i can't believe


	8. i hope he's gonna break these chains

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> roles and their reversals

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for the break yall. this chapter isnt my best work, but i wanted to get something up to let you know i'm still working on stuff! this isn't abandoned!
> 
> thank you for all the kindly reviews and everyone who's stuck with it, your reviews mean the world to me

They pick Shaun up from the Railroad first. Shaun stares up at him, eyes wide, fingers curling into the fabric of Jackie’s flannel.

“Dad, Father said to give this to you,” Shaun says, his voice trembling just so. “You’re not going to send me away, are you?’

There are emotions too complex to name flitting across Jackie’s face. Jackie aches, and Hancock aches right along with him.

“No, Shaun,” Jackie says at last, his voice soft, laced with something too broken for Hancock to place. Jackie kneels before the boy, pulling him into a tight hug. “No, Shaun, I won’t send you away. You’re safe with me.”

Shaun hugs Jackie back, tight as can be, and Hancock wonders if he’s ever seen Jackie look so desolate.

* * *

 

 _“If you are hearing this,_ ” Shaun’s grizzled voice crackles out from the pipboy later, much later. Shaun sleeps in his cot on the far side of the campfire, and from where Hancock sits near Jackie, cleaning his shotgun, he can hear the choked off gasp that Jackie sucks in through his teeth.

 _“If you are hearing this, then whatever conflicts you and I have endured are over. I have no reason to believe you’ll honor the request I’m about to make, but I feel compelled to try anyways. This synth, this… boy. He deserves more. He has been reprogrammed to believe he is your son. It is my hope that you will take him with you. I would ask only that you give him a chance. A chance to be a part of whatever future awaits to commonwealth._ ”

The tape hisses, whirrs, and then goes quiet.

Jackie buries his face in his hands, eyes squeezed shut, shoulders trembling.

“Jackie,” Hancock says softly.

Jackie shakes his head, and does not move.

Hancock sets his jaw.

“Jackie,” he says again, and this time, Jackie spins to look at him.

“What is there to be said?” he hisses, and in the glow of the fire, his eyes glimmer, beautiful and unnerving, the light bathing his topaz skin in gold. “I brought an army down on the only people who kept clean water, who had figured out how to survive without the radioactivity and were remaking the world! I murdered people who trusted me when their backs were turned! I killed my own goddamn son! I killed- I. I-“ Jackie covers his face with his hands, trembling, trembling, trembling.

“Jackie,” Hancock breathes out, and in a stiff, halting motion, shuffles over to where Jackie’s curled in on himself, leaning up against the warm line of his body. Jackie slumps into him, rasping out a broken, babbling litany of _what have I done what have I done what have I done-_

Shaun sleeps on, silent, oblivious to the way Jackie breaks on the other side of the fire.

* * *

 

“You found him, then?” Marcy asks. The sun has set over sanctuary, and the sky burns crimson and bloody.

Jackie looks over to Shaun, watching as the boy pesters Sturges about building things and eagerly insisting he help.

“Yeah,” Jackie says after a long silence. “Yeah, I did.”

Marcy nods, the motion clipped and harsh. “Good. At least someone got to keep their child in this shithole.”

Jackie turns back to her, and gently touches her shoulder. “Marcy. Thank you.”

It’s sincere in all the ways wastelanders aren’t used to, and Hancock can see the second Marcy gets even more uncomfortable, and she bats Jackie’s hand away.

“Yeah, whatever. Just don’t lose him again.”

The corners of Jackie’s eyes crinkle. “I don’t plan on it, that’s for damn sure. Besides, he’s here at Sanctuary, I don’t think there’s much of a safer place in the Commonwealth right now.”

Marcy smiles a smile like razors, sharp and cutting and vicious. “Those raiders can _try_. I’d like to see them.”

* * *

 

When they walking into Diamond City, Danny’s on the ground, coughing up blood, his face ash-pale.

“The mayor-“ he manages to crack out even as Jackie hushes him, pushing a stimpack into the vein on his arm. “The _mayor_ ,” Danny hisses, his gaze riveted on Hancock.

“Hancock’s with me, I don’t care about your ghoul poli-“

“ _No_ , you idiot,” Danny hisses, his fingers clutched tight around Jackie’s wrist. “I saw him. I _saw_ the mayor meeting a synth. After you blew the institute sky high. He’s one of them. He’s _one of them_.”

The sluggish pulse of radioactive blood in Hancock’s veins stills, his heart tripping over a beat.

Jackie glances back at him, and there’s a terrible, sympathetic look in his eyes, and Hancock swallows past the lump in his throat.

“C’mon, then,” Hancock rasps, and Jackie stands, taking Hancock’s hand in his own.

Jackie leads him towards the elevator, and Hancock follows, dread tightening like a noose around his heart.

* * *

 

“You let me leave,” McDonough insists.

“Let the gal go,” Jackie says, speaking softly, as if to a spooked wild animal. “Let Geneva go, and then we’ll talk.”

McDonough, the machine wearing Hancock’s _brother’s_ face studies them, before roughly shoving Geneva aside. She makes a quiet noise, and stumbles out of the way of the guns and the standoff.

“You let me walk out. You let me leave this place,” McDonough insists. “I’ve done nothing wrong, just what they told me to do.”

“Yeah,” Jackie murmurs. “I’ve heard that one before.”

“I know who you are,” McDonough says abruptly. “If you let me leave, I won’t tell them. You know, after all, what it’s like to be what they made you to be.”

Even beneath the bandana, Hancock can see Jackie set his jaw.

“They made me, but that’s not who I am,” Jackie snaps. “I know they gave all of you free will. You could have walked out whenever, but you got _greedy_. It’s so human, really, to be driven by greed in the way you were. Don’t forget, I’ve read every _single one_ of your reports back to your superiors. I had unrestricted access.”

McDonough pales, if that’s possible, and the sightlines of his gun waver.

Jackie breathes out before fixing his gaze back on McDonough. “Regardless, the decision whether you walk or not isn’t mine to make. After all, you’re not the body snatcher of _my_ brother.”

Jackie and McDonough look to Hancock.

Hancock’s mind is made up before he even pulls the trigger.

* * *

 

Jackie watches him over the glow of the fire that night, a strange reversal of their previous roles.

“Hancock,” he says, gently, aching. “He wasn’t your brother anymore.”

“I know that. It’s just… they got him so well. Even that pompous walk of his they… I guess I just didn’t want to believe it wasn’t him. Makes it easier though, knowing it wasn't really my brother responsible for the ghouls. Still feel like shit for not doin’ anything,”

“Hey,” Jackie says. “What matters is what you did afterward. You’ve saved a lot of people, Mayor.”

Hancock cracks a weak smile. “Thank you kindly, Vault Dweller.”

They grin at each other across the fire, and where the ring rests on its chain against Hancock’s chest, all he can feel is warmth.


End file.
